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The article illustrates the relationship between technology and inequality is critically examined through a comparison of women's experiences studying computing and information technology (IT) in two very different contexts or "cultures" in British higher education. The two courses examined--a traditional computer science course and an interdisciplinary IT course--are representative of two opposing approaches to the problem of gender inequality in technological education. The first adopts a liberal approach and the second adopts an approach that has more in common with social constructionism. The aims are, first, to look at these different constructions of the "problem" of gender inequality in relation to technology; second, to examine women's experiences in each of these computing cultures particularly in relation to their acquisition of technical skills; and, finally, to argue that a social constructionist approach would seem to be a minimum requirement for ensuring more enduring changes in gender-technology relations which leave open the possibility both of a wider range of gender positions and identities and a more progressive set of technological priorities.

The article focuses on information technology policy in Great Britain. In October 1999, "The Guardian" reported that the British Prime Minister Tony Blair was about to take his first tentative steps into information technology. He admitted his incompetence in the face of a computer, and attended a two-hour training session in a shopping center to be instructed in word-processing, e-mail and the Internet. This was part of a publicity drive to encourage people to get involved in technology through a network of e-libraries. The Guardian accompanied its report of Blair's introduction to IT training with an article by the Prime Minister in which he marveled at the "speed of change of the new industrial revolution sweeping the world." He asserted that the future of the nation was dependent upon technological success, arguing that computers and the Internet were powering economic growth, and that ensuring Britain was not divided into computer haves and have-nots was fundamental to the building of a fair as well as a prosperous society. The intention is to provide critical perspectives on the relationships between information and communication technologies and the social and economic structures and processes which affect equality and inequality.